YouTube MP3 converter sites are seen as one of the biggest piracy threats to the music industry.
And it looks like bigwigs in the music world registered a huge victory after two leading YouTube MP3 converters shut their doors to thousands of users.
Last year a joint legal action against YouTube-MP3, the largest ripping site at the time, was filled in the US.
The action by the RISS, IFPI and BPI in California resulted in YouTube-MP3 agreeing to shutdown voluntarily.
Soon afterwards the music industry set their sights on other YouTube MP3 converters, according to TorrentFreak.
These popular converters include MP3juices.cc, YtMp3.cc, Savefrom.net and Convert2mp3.net.
And now two of the leading YouTube MP3 converters currently operating – MP3juices.cc and YtMp3.cc – have shut their doors to UK traffic.
When users in the UK try to access MP3juices.cc, they are now greeted by a message which says: “This service is no longer available.
“Thanks for being a part of us. Goodbye!”
It’s not clear why these sites have closed their doors to UK traffic and not to anywhere else in the world.
Industry group BPI last year secured an agreement with YouTube-MP3 to block UK visitors.
It remains to be seen whether MP3juices.cc and YtMp3.cc stopping UK traffic is a precursor to a further clampdown on their services.
Geoff Taylor, chief executive of BPI, said: “We are seeing that the closure of the largest stream ripping site, YouTube-MP3, following coordinated global legal action from record companies.
“However, stream ripping remains a major issue for the industry.
“These sites are making large sums of money from music without paying a penny to those that invest in and create it.
“We will continue to take legal action against other illegal ripping sites where necessary.”
The news comes after it was argued last week that free ripping websites which enable users to download audio from YouTube videos are not illegal.
The Electronic Front Foundation (EFF) has spoken-out in defence of the sites, which enable users to extract and download the audio from YouTube videos.
EFF – a nonprofit organisation that specialises in defending civil liberties and user privacy in the digital world – argues that not all stream ripping sites facilitate copyright infringement.
It notes that while some users undoubtedly use these services to illegally rip music from YouTube videos, there are a number of legitimate ways people can use these online tools.
EFF says: “Websites that simply allow users to extract the audio track from a user-selected online video are not ‘illegal sites’ and are not liable for copyright infringement, unless they engage in additional conduct that meets the definition of infringement.
“There exists a vast and growing volume of online video that is licensed for free downloading and modification, or contains audio tracks that are not subject to copyright.”
The Electronic Front Foundation made its comments in a letter to the Office of the US Trade Representative (USTR), following a piracy declaration by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) against ripping-style sites.